Thinking about published photos of mine, it reminded me of by far and away my most successful picture.
This is legendary Australian fast bowler Dennis Lillee being carried off the pitch in Northampton in 1988, after he’d slipped and knackered his ankle ligaments.
Basically, I scooped the world on this one. I was the only person on the ground with a camera on a fairly dull day in a match against Leicestershire.
I offered the photo to the resident journalist from the Chronicle and Echo, and they published it on the front page. It was also printed in Wisden and Cricketer magazines. I must have made all of £30-40 out of it. Mind you, to a student 22 years ago, that was a decent bit of cash!
And it’s in Lillee’s autobiography “Menace”.
When the book came out, I just happened to see it in Borders and had a flick through. And blimey, there was one of my photos! I rang up the publishers and explained that they were using a picture without permission from the copyright holder – they were fine, explained that the picture had been supplied by Lillee (he’d had copies of the print at the time) and asked me to send proof that the picture was mine. I sent them a copy of the Chron’s front page (which, of course, I’d kept) and they paid me for it – another £25 or so – and bunged in a copy of the paperback version of the book, complete with credit.
There’s big money in photography…